Developer: Squatting Penguins
Publisher: Squatting Penguins
Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux
Tested on: PC
The Mims Beginning – Preview
The Mims Beginning is an adorable looking god-like simulation game developed by Squatting Penguins. The real-time strategy indie game is currently available on Steam as an Early Access Game. With vibrant cheery visuals that certainly exceed the ones from Godus and a slow-paced gameplay, the game certainly show potential.
“A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away a spaceship belonging to an incredibly brave tribe of Mims…” and that is how the storyline in The Mims Beginning begins. You play as a god, looking down at a colony of alien creatures, namely Mims. It is your task to make sure that these adorable looking aliens thrive on floating planets while looking for parts of their crashed spaceship. The narrative continues in each of the missions as you help the Mims survive on the dangerous islands they need to venture on.
Aside from the adorable looking creatures, the game offers a vibrant color scheme with even more oddly but adorable visuals. While the vibrant visuals are great to see and somewhat stunning in their own way, the combination in general does make the game feel less suited for grownups. However, this is only an illusion formed by the general looks of the cartoon styled visuals as the game has a fairly steep difficulty curve which makes it unsuitable for children.
The Mims do not talk so there is no voice-acting that we can comment on. It’s only incoherent muttering, which is fine on its down but without a decent soundtrack during gameplay, it does get dull quickly. The choice of voice-less creatures during the gameplay is not much of an issue but the cutscenes that provide the continuation of the narrative are also without audio. The main menu has a great instrumental soundtrack that is on par with the alien themed creatures and planets which seems to be missing during the lengthy missions of the story mode thus the audio design is a lacking feature in my book.
Control-wise the game is okay but the keyboard controls are non-intuitive and cannot be rebinded. Allowing the player to play the game fully with the mouse is a plus but this also means that the camera control has been complicated to a point where the camera and mouse controls feel rough. For example, rotating the camera is done by holding the middle mouse button and the right mouse button in, simultaneously. Or you can rotate the camera around its own axis by pressing Q, E, F or V. In all fairness, it’s less horrible than it sounds but it’s still a feature that needs to be looked into.
The only mode available is the story mode. In this mode, each level is comprised of one of the floating islands where you need to complete challenging main goals and possible side-goals. The tutorial, which also acts as a prologue, is only two missions long. New levels do provide new information about certain creatures, buildings and other elements of the game but there seems to be a general lack of well-needed information that can come handy in later stages. For example, you are explained that you can build houses where the Mims can rest and feel safe but the game does not tell you how many Mims the house can hold – which would’ve been welcome information at a later stage where you need to rescue more than 20 Mims from floating around in space.
As the game also features RTS-elements, certain missions require some strategically thinking. A bad decision quite early in the mission can have huge consequences later on, which you can’t undo. Having to replay a mission that can last over an hour will cause impatient players to explode. Even I found this extremely irritating while I’m not an ill-tempered player. The reason for the missions to become this lengthy is mostly due to the slow-paced gameplay. Surely enough, you can fast-forward the gameplay to a maximum of 3X but the gameplay remains to feel slow and the lack of in-mission saves can become an annoyance. All-in-all, the story mode doesn’t offer a lot of replay value but this is likely to change in the near future when survival mode arrives.
Most missions will feel the same as the order in which buildings needs to be finished seems consistent in every missions. You’ll need your PSI tower first, which should be followed up with a Silo and an Extractor. Plants are a necessity during this stage as Mims will throw fruits in the Extractor, where biomass is extracted. Biomass serves as ‘energy’ for the plethora of actions you can perform – including buildings. Since you will also need gems to build even more, you need a Bio Lab – where you can create animals which you can sell for gems once fully grown. To sell them you’ll need a Transporter. The list goes on and on like this, ultimately dulling the gameplay even though certain islands can already have certain buildings ready for you. Lastly, you need PSI energy to perform certain actions to help the Mims such as call in rain or fire and even cages to prevent creatures from hurting – or eventually killing – your beloved Mims.
The physics in the game are fantastic. Literally everything can fall off the floating island while at the same time, Mims can ‘miss’ their throw at the Extractor – causing fruits to fly everywhere. The fact that every object can also ‘bounce’ off trees and buildings is yet another plus. Other than that, the game also offers unique mechanics such as an animal and fruit smell which can attract creatures and future predictions. The latter one allows you to predict meteorite impacts, earthquakes, rain, incoming dangerous creatures and more during later stages.
Conclusion
The Mims Beginning is an adorable adventurous god-like simulation with a pinch of RTS-elements. Considering it’s still in Early Access, the amount of content is absolutely amazing. The slow-paced gameplay and the almost non-existing soundtrack do cause a heavy sense of lack but the game shows plenty of potential thanks to great and well-used mechanics, allowing a more than decent gameplay.
The Mims Beginning - Preview,
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